Windows Word doc reversal?

[Deleted member 2157292]

I went to Copy an updated Word doc from my pc to my usb flash drive where there was an older version with less pages.

I stupidly clicked on the file name in the window with the flash drive and dragged it to the desktop window and clicked Replace.

I suppose there's no way to recover my longer Desktop doc with several more pages, now it's been "overwritten ' by the older copy on the flash drive.

Stupid question I guess; but I happen to catch a few You Tube Shorts / Tik Tok with some tricks unknown to me.

This only happened 5 minutes ago.

Thanks to any sorcerers out there.

 

[Deleted member 2157292]

To add :

I did a Google search again and there is an easy way but it doesn't work for me on my old laptop (Windows 10)with an old version of Word.

Right clicking the file and Restore Previous Versions brings up no previous versions after a "Working on it".

Same with other docs I updated several times, even though the Properties tab on each shows separate Created, Modified, and Accessed dates.

That file's Properties now shows a Modified date as 27 Oct and Accessed date today 2nd Nov here, so I guess before I made the mistake the Modified and Accessed date would be the same - today.

I guess I'm out of luck because I like to use my old laptop, even though I have a new desktop pc plugged in to the TV I just use for streaming mostly

 

[Dannydet]

Unless you had that original backed up somewhere it's overwritten.

 

[Deleted member 2157292]

Yeah. Looks like.

Does anyone know if Restore Previous Versions generally works OK. It may only be a feature of whichever version of Word I've owned for yonks.

My new pc currently won't open these old docs dragged directly (. doc) , but will open those I had saved to One Drive as DocX, and I can't remember how I made those.
I do have the free online MS Office, which isn't a great help this time around.
I have Trio Office (ex Libre) also which I must have downloaded months ago and it will open old. docs (I bought the unit in 2021).

I'll have to start using my new desktop as a pc finally, and find a cat to kick in the morning

 

[kate]

I suppose there's no way to recover my longer Desktop doc with several more pages, now it's been "overwritten ' by the older copy on the flash drive.

Does the computer have a hard drive or SSD?

If you have a hard drive then the longer version was replaced by the shorter version, but it may or may not have been physically overwritten. You could try a file recovery program:

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva/download
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

 

[Hadron]

Might be worth trying some file recovery software: I don't know that "replace" in the file table necessarily means "write to the same location in storage".

Nothing to lose in trying.

 

[Deleted member 2157292]

Does the computer have a hard drive or SSD?

If you have a hard drive then the longer version was replaced by the shorter version, but it may or may not have been physically overwritten. You could try a file recovery program:

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva/download
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

Thanks @kate I'll see what they offer later, at least for the next time. I browsed them on my phone. I don't know if they offer previous version files, or if so if I needed to have their software installed beforehand.

Might be worth trying some file recovery software: I don't know that "replace" in the file table necessarily means "write to the same location in storage".

Nothing to lose in trying.

Yes, I presume it's on the same HDD location, so I wonder if the Restore Previous Versions would normally work.



I took 2 photos last night



The second one is a different earlier file also with no previously edited versions *available, but the Modified dates were showing similarly to the newer doc file I wanted, ie not showing edited within the previous 24 hours which it was, but last Modified several days ago.

"Restore Previous Versions" probably used to work, when that Word version was current (around 1823) but I never had the need to find one.

 

[kate]

Thanks @kate I'll see what they offer later, at least for the next time. I browsed them on my phone. I don't know if they offer previous version files, or if so if I needed to have their software installed beforehand.

The two programs I linked to do not have to be installed beforehand, and do not use a Previous Versions function.

They will scan the hard drive and list files that have not been physically overwritten yet and offer you the option to recover them.

 

[Deleted member 2157292]

The two programs I linked to do not have to be installed beforehand, and do not use a Previous Versions function.

They will scan the hard drive and list files that have not been physically overwritten yet and offer you the option to recover them.

Thanks @kate
As it happens I had just downloaded Recuva first and it was running as I started this post, but only took over 1 minute to look for the file name, or then look for all documents in C:\Users\user\Desktop where it was. So it didn't find the current file, or any document, though at the bottom of the all document search it says Found O files (661,832 ignored).

*[Also lists the C Drive in the results window as Windows 7 OS when it's now Windows 10 but I imagine thats completely irrelevant.]
*It shows Windows 10 along with the pc hardware under the Recuva top banner - so ignore that*

It doesn't seem Recuva would find previous file versions but it's the free version and I'm doing something wrong.

I'm doing it as an experiment now as I have recovered emotionally from my "loss"

I'll try it further tomorrow and also Easus which I had heard of in the past. Cheers!